New Zealand cities losing their leaves

As we densify our cities to accommodate population growth, we must not lose sight of the environmental benefits that urban green space provides, warns the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Simon Upton sion of yards and sections into houses and driveways in existing urban areas. The second is a shift towards larger houses on smaller sections in new subdivisions.

Many councils are struggling to improve the quality and availability of public green spaces to compensate for the loss of private yards and gardens.

The trends documented in this report were already playing out before recent Government moves to promote further intensification. The Medium Density Residential Standards will place particular pressure on private residential green space in years to come.

The Commissioner offers several proposals to ensure that the contribution green space can make to urban environments is fully accounted for in future urban design.

One solution lies in building upwards rather than via low-rise infill development. Building upwards uses urban land more efficiently and reduces pressure to develop green spaces elsewhere in the city.

More attention could also be given to counteracting the loss of private yards and gardens by improving nearby public green space. In the short term, this could be done by adding patches of larger shrubs and trees in local parks, road reserves and other neglected corners of public land.

The difficulty of retrofitting green space into existing neighbourhoods highlights the importance of adequately providing it from the outset in new subdivisions on the city fringe. Councils could take a more proactive approach to land acquisition for future parks and reserves to help achieve this.

Green spaces provide benefits over potentially very long time horizons. Looking forward, the ongoing shift towards more densely populated cities and the emerging impacts of climate change will very likely make urban parks, reserves, gardens, vegetation and street trees even more valuable.

The difficulty of re-establishing green space once lost makes it all the more important that planning and providing for urban green spaces is mandatory for local authorities just like it is for traditional ‘hard’ infrastructure. This could help avoid development decisions that create less liveable environments that we will have to live with –and in – forever.